Simple C# code to retrieve a list of GitHub Copilot CLI sessions

Three weeks ago, I wrote about taking the GitHub Copilot CLI's plan.md file with your version control commits/checkins. Today, I ran into another problem when I rebooted my computer: I had multiple Windows Terminal sessions open, but they were lost during reboot, so I had to start fresh. My workflow involves keeping multiple sessions open, allowing me to return to them quickly. So, the question became: how do I then know which sessions I can resume with copilot --resume <id>? If you know the ID, you can go to that session directly.

Turns out that GitHub Copilot CLI stores a file called workspace.yaml inside the same session folders I mentioned in my previous post. The YAML file looks something like this:

id: 12345abc-4433-2211-aabb-ccddeeff1122
cwd: C:\Code\MyProject
summary: Plan Application Core Features in ASP.NET Core MVC
summary_count: 2
created_at: 2026-03-27T09:44:46.224Z
updated_at: 2026-05-03T15:53:02.475Z

You could go and read the "session-state" folders, looking for the YAML file and getting the session ID from the file manually. But of course, you can also write some C# to do that more easily.

Here's a quick example:

public record AiSessionInfo
{
    public string Id { get; set; } = "";
    
    public string Cwd { get; set; } = "";
    
    public string Summary { get; set; } = "";
    
    public string FilePath { get; set; } = "";
}

public class CopilotSessionReader
{
    public static List GetWorkspaces(string rootFolder)
    {
        return FindWorkspaces(rootFolder);
    }

    internal static List FindWorkspaces(string rootFolder)
    {
        List results = [];

        if (!Directory.Exists(rootFolder))
        {
            Console.WriteLine("Folder does not exist: " + rootFolder);
            return results;
        }

        string[] files = Directory.GetFiles(rootFolder, "workspace.yaml", SearchOption.AllDirectories);

        foreach (string file in files)
        {
            AiSessionInfo info = ParseWorkspaceYaml(file);
            results.Add(info);
        }

        return results;
    }

    internal static AiSessionInfo ParseWorkspaceYaml(string filePath)
    {
        AiSessionInfo info = new()
        {
            FilePath = filePath
        };

        foreach (string line in File.ReadLines(filePath))
        {
            if (line.StartsWith("id:"))
            {
                info.Id = line["id:".Length..].Trim();
            }
            else if (line.StartsWith("cwd:"))
            {
                info.Cwd = line["cwd:".Length..].Trim();
            }
            else if (line.StartsWith("summary:"))
            {
                info.Summary = line["summary:".Length..].Trim();
            }
        }

        return info;
    }
}

Yes, I'm aware that you can say copilot --continue to go to the latest session, or just copilot --resume (without the ID) that allows me to pick a session from a list with my arrow keys, but that doesn't help with automation: opening multiple tabs automatically (including going to the correct folder) in my terminal.

That's why I think a solution like the above C# code is the best thing – at present.

Happy AI hacking!